Common cuckoo (bird). Report with photographs and video. Interesting facts from the life of a cuckoo

Squad Cuckoo-like- Cuculiformes, Family Cuckoos - Cuculidae, Genus Cuckoos - Cuculus

Description of Buturlin. Each of us has been familiar since childhood with the cuckooing of an inconspicuous gray bird, this “sad and simple” sound, repeated so monotonously and yet so attractive. In the spring noise of the forest, in the ringing chorus of small birds, the cuckoo seems to weave its own special musical pattern, a little sad and dreamy. This bird is mentioned more often than many others in folk songs, beliefs and fairy tales, its tune is often used in romances and symphonies by composers of many nations.
“The forest all around is green - young and dewy, and there is silence in the forest; and among the silence - only the voice of the cuckoo. Vociferous prophet! Answer me, will I live to see the new spring?”
In the old proverbs of the Russian peasantry, the cuckoo with its melancholy singing was the embodiment of grief and sadness: “The cuckoo cuckoos - it speaks of grief,” “It’s not the cuckoo who cuckoos, but the wife who grieves.” This bird is also mentioned in other proverbs, which indicates its great popularity: “I traded the cuckoo for a hawk,” “You can’t hatch chickens on cuckoo eggs,” “The cuckoo doesn’t crow on Peter’s Day,” and so on.
The cuckoo is familiar to everyone by its voice, but few have seen it and know it by its appearance: the cuckoo is quite careful, and often it is not possible to get closer than 50-80 meters to it. But there is one good remedy that helps you get to know this bird better: by imitating the cuckooing, you can lure almost every screaming male to you. To do this, you need to learn to shout a low, guttural, but loud “oo-oo” (almost without the “k”), as the cuckoo does, which is not at all difficult for people with even a slight ear for music.
Hearing the cry of his rival, the male cuckoo immediately flies to his call, hoping to catch the female near him. There are fewer female cuckoos than males, so there is always strong enmity between the latter. With a light flight, its tail half-spread out like a fan in the air, almost without flapping its wings, the cuckoo rushes between the trees, dodging the skates pursuing it. She sat down on the top of a birch tree, raised her tail, hung her wings, threw back her head, puffed out the gray feathers of her crop - and a loud, hoarse “peek-a-boo” was now heard very close to you. You coo again, egging her on, she falls silent, then responds with some cooing “ur-ur...” and flies even closer with a loud laughing cry. Now her yellow legs and wide yellow throat are clearly visible, from which this strong, less pleasant cry bursts out; a gray transverse pattern on the abdomen and light spots on the feathers of the light, mobile tail are visible. The cuckoo turns right and left, bends down from time to time when angry flycatchers swoop in, and cuckoos again without a break. Sometimes, excited by the voice of an elusive rival, she doubles the first syllable of the cry: “ko-ko-ku, ko-ko-ku...”, rumbles off the tree and floats low over the bushes, then returns to her old place, and again in silence Boru, without stopping, her song hums. Often in the spring, walking through the forest, I managed to lead two or three cuckoos with me for several kilometers, luring them with a cry. But as soon as the ringing, cheerful trill of “kli-kli-kli-kli-kli-kli...”, with which the female calls the male to follow her, was heard on the side of the road, my “guides” lagged behind, and I continued to walk alone.
In the central zone of the European part of Russia, the cuckoo arrives at the end of April or early May. At first, only males appear, and after a week or two, females join them. At the time of arrival of males, the forest is not yet covered with leaves, there are often cold nights - the cuckoos are silent. But in warm weather they begin to crow immediately upon arrival. In the spring, hunters waiting for wood grouse at leks often hear cuckooing at night in the complete darkness and pre-dawn silence of the forest. It then sounds somehow especially solemn and beautiful. At the height of spring, the cuckoo screams almost around the clock - until it becomes hoarse, longer and more diligently than many forest birds sing. By the end of July in the middle zone, the cuckooing stops completely and resumes only the following spring.
The cuckoo is very unpretentious in choosing summer habitats - it meets both in coniferous and deciduous forests, in a strip of crooked forest-tundra, in small steppe forests and ravines overgrown with bushes, high in the tori at the border of forests, and even along reeds near lakes, if there are a lot of warblers there. For her, the features of the forest are not as important as the abundance of insectivorous birds to which she throws her eggs. She avoids dense coniferous forests because there are few insectivorous birds in them; here it is replaced by a smaller deaf cuckoo.
One of the most interesting features of cuckoo biology is “ nest parasitism”, laying eggs in other people’s nests, in which all the care of incubating and feeding the chick is carried out by “foster parents”. This remarkable feature of the life of cuckoos was already known to the ancient Greeks, but only in recent decades have particularly valuable observations been collected on it. Each female cuckoo occupies a certain area where she looks out for bird nests. At the same time, some cuckoos use, for example, the nests of only white wagtails, others - only pipits, and still others - warblers; scientists believe that all cuckoos are divided into special “biological tribes”, each of which has adapted to parasitize certain “hosts” - species of small birds. In Europe, cuckoos lay eggs on several dozen species, ranging from tiny kinglets and wrens to nightingales and swifts, but of this number, only twenty species suffer especially badly from parasitism.
The cuckoo's egg begins to mature after it finds a nest in a selected bird species during construction. The egg remains in the oviduct for four to five days; During this time, the birds manage to finish the construction. The cuckoo lays eggs during the day (unlike most other species), which helps it seize the moment when the owners of the nest are absent. She lays the egg either directly in the nest, or on the ground and then carries it in her mouth to a previously noticed nesting site of the host birds. Each cuckoo lays from 9 to 15 eggs (sometimes over 20), with fairly large intervals, so that young cuckoos can be found at different times of the summer. The eggs of the cuckoo, in comparison with its size, are very small and are close in size to the eggs of their host birds. They are very variable in color, and each female lays eggs only of a certain color. One is blue, throwing them into nests with eggs of the same color, the other is gray, the third is spotted. For example, in the nest of a garden warbler, a grayish egg of this bird, 23.6 millimeters long, and a grayish cuckoo egg, 23.3 millimeters long, were found (in the Moscow region); in the skate's nest there are three brownish eggs of this species and one brownish one - of a cuckoo, specialized in parasitism of skates. But there are often exceptions when, for example, a blue cuckoo egg appears in the nest of a pipit or warbler.
The cuckoo does not disturb birds that feed their chicks with grains (grosbeak, greenfinch), but sometimes makes the mistake of throwing eggs to tits into too narrow hollows, from where its large chick cannot get out and must die.
Searching for other people's nests and throwing her eggs into them (usually one, less often two) limit all the female cuckoo's concerns about her offspring. The embryo warmed by the hen develops very quickly: cuckoo emerges from the egg after twelve and a half days of incubation, that is, somewhat earlier than the chicks of most of our small birds hatch. The baby cuckoo outstrips the chicks of its adoptive parents in growth; this is of great importance in his life. Ten to twelve hours after hatching from the egg, it begins to develop a special need to throw out various objects that touch its back from the nest (there are many sensitive nerve endings in the bare skin of the cuckoo’s back). If a warm egg, in which the chick is already moving, falls on its back, the cuckoo will place it in a recess on the sacrum and, holding it with its wings, crawl to the edge of the nest. Here, standing up on his legs, resting his head on the nest, the naked, blind robber throws the egg onto the ground with a sharp push. He does the same with little chicks. During the first three to four days of life, when this reflex is expressed in the cuckoo chick, the adopted chick manages to throw all 5-10 eggs or chicks of its owners out of the nest. Birds feed small chicks only in the nest, so all thrown out chicks die.
If the cuckoo lays an egg in a nest with a hatched clutch and the cuckoo chick is somewhat stunted in growth, then most of the chicks or the entire brood remain intact. It takes a lot of work for parents to feed such a family.
The cuckoo remains in the nest for about twenty days. At first he is completely silent, but later begins to squeak loudly, constantly demanding food. It also squeaks after leaving the nest, benefiting from the efforts of its foster parents for two to three weeks. It can be strange to see a large, well-flying cuckoo in reddish plumage, around which two tiny warblers or flycatchers are tirelessly fussing. The little cuckoo is several times taller than them; it opens its mouth so wide that it seems that it is about to swallow the bird along with the caterpillars it brought. It is difficult for the poor warbler to reach with her beak the wide throat of her insatiable pet - he is so taller than her. Sometimes you can see how a bird sits on the cuckoo’s shoulders and hurriedly shoves food on top of it, hurrying for new prey.
The gluttony of the growing cuckoo is very great. There is a known case when a young bird of this species, reared in a cage, ate in a day 18 lizards, 39 large green grasshoppers, 3 death's head butterfly pupae, 43 cabbage caterpillars, 5 cockchafer larvae, 4 cross spiders, 50 mealworms and a considerable number of ant “eggs”.

The cuckoo is a bird that has become universally famous due to the peculiarities of breeding its chicks.

Despite the fact that cuckoos are considered the worst parents in the world, this is not entirely true. These creatures can observe a pair of another species to see if they can provide food for the baby cuckoo.

In addition, not all birds are irresponsible parents who toss their eggs. Some build houses themselves and are very responsible about the process of feeding young animals. There are also a number of species that lay eggs, for example, the cuckoo duck. People know almost everywhere what a cuckoo looks like. Currently, about 140 species have been described. They all have their own characteristics of life.

• The family includes 6 genera, including:
• real;
• Pied-billed;
• running;
• coccyzinae;
• curtain;

larvae eaters.

Certain species of birds do not at all resemble the usual ones, distinguished by their variegated colors. The most famous is the common cuckoo. The description of the bird was given even before the establishment of ornithology as a separate science.

The body of the common cuckoo from nose to tail reaches approximately 40 cm. Its weight rarely exceeds 100 g. The size of the wing is usually no more than half the length of the body, that is, within 20 cm. Thanks to the long tail and short wings, birds can maneuver even in dense thickets.

The body of the common cuckoo from nose to tail reaches approximately 40 cm. Its weight rarely exceeds 100 g Despite the common features of the body structure, the colors of the representatives of the family are extremely diverse.

The very common common cuckoo has gray-blue plumage on the back and upper part of the wings. The tail is motley, as it has a pattern in the form of horizontal stripes. The breast is light gray with thin dark and brown veins. Coloration varies significantly. For example, the bronze cuckoo has a characteristic bronze color of feathers. This allows her to camouflage herself better. The golden cuckoo has yellow-gold plumage with small splashes of black and beige.

Various plumage colors are the result of adaptation to the natural environment. The legs of almost all species of true cuckoos are short and unsuitable for long walks. Birds lead a predominantly solitary lifestyle.

• Despite the fact that these creatures have a modest body size, they have an excellent appetite. Their diet includes:
• insect larvae;
• mosquitoes;
• beetles;
• caterpillars;

Their gluttony is due to the fact that these birds lead a migratory lifestyle and migrate from the northern regions to Africa and South Asia for the entire winter period. To make the flight, they need to accumulate a lot of subcutaneous fat during the favorable summer period.

It is worth noting that there are representatives of the cuckoo family that can completely change the opinion about this family. Ani is a striking example.

This species not only builds nests, but is also a social bird. Usually several pairs build a house on one tree at once, and each bird watches not only its own eggs, but also those of others. Outwardly, these birds are unlike their frivolous relatives.

Outwardly, they resemble a mixture of a crow and a parrot. Their feathers are bluish-black in color. Unlike other members of the family, Ani run much better than fly. This bird of the cuckoo genus pursues a grazing herbivore on foot, collecting insects that were frightened by the hooves and strive to quickly leave the dangerous place.

Unlike other members of the family, Ani run much better than they fly.

The caught insects are used entirely to feed the young, so they cannot be called bad parents.

Various plumage colors are the result of adaptation to the natural environment

Gallery: cuckoo (25 photos)

What happens if the cuckoo throws an egg (video)

Distribution area of ​​the bird

Many natural environments are favored by these birds. The habitat of various members of the family covers almost the entire globe. Cuckoos are not found only in Antarctica and Antarctica. Many of the described species live most of the year in North and South America, as well as Eurasia. Many of them are found in warm climates with extensive tropical and subtropical forests.

Deciduous forests are considered the favorite places of cuckoos. Cuckoos stay mainly in the upper tiers of trees, where they can find food. Only certain species prefer to settle in forest-steppes.

• Species that live in tropical forests are sedentary. Birds that breed their chicks in the temperate zone go to winter in India, Africa, South China and the Sunda Islands. The yellow-billed cuckoo, common in northern America, migrates to Argentina. The bronze and New Zealand varieties are sent to the Pacific islands, which have a milder climate. During their seasonal migrations, birds cover over 2 thousand km.
• nightingale;
• swallows;
• wood lark;
• tap dancing;
• oatmeal;
• sparrow;
• gray flycatcher;
• shrikes;
• minted;
• finch;
• coot redstarts;
• skate;
• warblers;
• whiters;
• black-headed warbler;
• song thrush;
• warblers;
• hawk warbler;
• Bluethroat

Some adoptive parents have already developed immunity and throw away other people's eggs, therefore, despite the fact that cuckoos throw them to certain species, sometimes they still have to change their preferences.

The cuckoo is watching the house it likes. When the owners have laid several eggs in it, she waits for a moment when no one is around, swallows one of them and lays her own. This minimizes the risk of being detected.

Many cuckoos have eggs that are similar in shape and color to those of the birds in whose nest they want to place their offspring. Sometimes the male helps to provide offspring. He can circle demonstratively to force birds to attack him in order to drive him away from the nest. At this time, the female cuckoo lays an egg. This is a very effective tactic that usually produces positive results.

Common cuckoo (video)

Behavior of the cuckoo in the nest

If the birds do not notice the substitution and accept someone else's egg, the cuckoo baby is born earlier than other chicks. He is blind and naked, but his instincts force him to get rid of other eggs in the nest. As a rule, the cuckoo, resting its back on the egg, gradually pushes it outside the house. If his half-brother managed to hatch, the cuckoo will still push him out. Such cruelty is explained by the fact that his parents will not be able to feed him, given the gluttony of the growing cuckoo.

Thus, getting rid of competitors, he becomes the main one. The cuckoo squeaks all day long, demanding food. The birds, who are his adoptive parents, cannot resist this, so they search for food without rest. The cuckoo chick becomes mature enough to fly 40 days after hatching. The cuckoo remains with its parents and usually demands food from them until it is time to go to its wintering place.

Attention, TODAY only!

This article will talk about one very strange bird, which differs from other birds with its surprisingly unusual behavior. This is a cuckoo, known for laying its eggs or throwing them into the nests of other bird species.

Many people know that female cuckoos shift all the worries about their offspring onto other people’s shoulders, so to speak, limiting themselves to searching for ready-made other people’s nests and throwing their eggs into them.

What is the name of the cuckoo chick? Little cuckoo. This is what will be discussed in this article.

General information about the cuckoo

Different types of cuckoos differ in size. Most birds belonging to the cuckoo family weigh barely 100 grams and have a body length of no more than forty centimeters.

But all representatives of this family are characterized by the presence of a rather long tail, strong paws and a thin body. And the plumage, as a rule, is not particularly brightly colored. And sexual dimorphism in color is either poorly developed or absent altogether.

There are no cuckoos only in the Arctic and Antarctic. But in general, their distribution area is wide throughout the globe, and they are especially fond of warm countries. Some species living in temperate latitudes are mostly migratory, while the rest are sedentary.

Description

Before we find out what a cuckoo chick is, we will describe its parents.

The size of the cuckoo is small. Males and most females have an ash-gray color on the head and upper body. The underside is striated in color (“hawk” type). There are females that have a rusty-red color on the upper side of the body. The tail is quite long - reaches 15-19 centimeters, and the wings grow to 20-30 centimeters. In this regard, the cuckoo appears to be a large bird, especially in flight. In fact, it is small, and its weight is only 120 grams (maximum).

More details about what a cuckoo chick is (see photo below) can be found later in the article.

Cuckoos are considered to be medium-sized birds: the smallest species are only slightly larger than a sparrow, and the largest are like crows. They have rigid plumage that fits well to the body. But the fluff is rather poorly developed.

The elongated shin feathers of these birds form a kind of “pants”. The wings of most members of the family are long and sharp (there are only 10 primary flight wings, the longest of which is the third).

The stepped long tail usually has 10 tail feathers. The four-toed legs of cuckoos are short.

The young cuckoo (chick) differs from its old relatives in the browner coloration of the upper body, as a rule, with rusty-red transverse stripes. The cuckoo's tail has a white tip, while rufous females have a dark stripe along the edge.

The male makes sounds in the form of “cuckoo”, sometimes turning into muffled laughter. Females are characterized by a ringing sound “kli-kli-kli”. cuckoos no more than ten times in a row.

About varieties

The number of the entire order of cuckoos is approximately 150 species, united in 39 genera. They are divided into 2 suborders: true cuckoos, containing one family of cuckoos, and turacos, containing one family of turacos (or banana-eaters).

Most of the members of the family are shrubby and arboreal. Their life passes in the crown of bushes and trees. Among them there are species leading a terrestrial lifestyle. They build their nests on the ground.

Many cuckoos are monogamous. During the breeding season, they form pairs, build nests themselves, incubate eggs and feed their chicks.

People often ask the question: "Why does the cuckoo abandon its chicks?" It turns out that this is typical only for polygamous cuckoos.

Habitats, lifestyle

This cuckoo nests in lands from England to Japan and Kamchatka, occupying almost the entire Russian territory from west to east. In the north, in the European part of the country, the distribution area of ​​this bird reaches the Arctic Circle and even a little further. As for the southern part, in this region the cuckoos “crossed” the state border, reaching Asia Minor and North Africa.

The bird lives in both tundra and semi-deserts, choosing shrubs, forests and mountain dwarf trees. Feeds on a wide variety of insects (helps in killing many hairy caterpillars that other birds do not normally feed on). You can find out what the cuckoo chick eats below.

Almost all such representatives of the family live in the eastern hemisphere, and monogamous people live in the western hemisphere. The first, as you remember, do not form pairs: in one area there are only one female and several males, less often their ratio is the opposite.

In the European part of Russia, these birds throw eggs into the nests of several dozen species: tiny kinglets, wrens, nightingales, swifts, etc. They also throw “fosterlings” into sparrows.

Peculiarities

Cuckoo eggs vary among all species because the females belong to different ancestral lines. Each of them is associated with a specific host bird species, so the eggs are laid in a corresponding color. There is another interesting point. A slightly grown cuckoo chick pushes other chicks out of the nest, whose parents continue to feed the foundling.

Depending on the region of habitat, the host birds of cuckoos may be different. In the European part these are primarily redstarts, wagtails, warblers and shrikes. Their breeding season is from May to July.

Cuckoo chick: photo, description

The embryo, warmed by a diligent hen, develops quite quickly. The cuckoo chick emerges from the egg within 12 days, that is, earlier than the chicks of most small birds. In height, he quickly overtakes the natural children of his adoptive parents.

Strangely, almost immediately after hatching (after 10-12 hours), the cuckoo chick has some kind of special need to throw various objects out of the nest that touch its back (bare skin has many very sensitive nerve endings). If suddenly a warm egg with an already moving chick falls on the foundling’s back, the cuckoo, placing it in the sacral cavity and holding it with its wings, crawls to the edge of the nest to throw it to the ground. He can do the same with small chicks.

Habits

In total, during the first 3-4 days of life, when the chick exhibits a similar reflex, the cuckoo chick (foster) throws only about 10 eggs from the nest, or almost all of the host chicks. Usually, parents feed their young only in nests, so abandoned babies die.

The whole thing usually remains intact if the cuckoo throws an egg into a nest with an already hatched clutch, because it begins to lag behind them in growth. Then it is very difficult for parents to feed so many mouths.

The cuckoo in the nest is completely silent. A little later, he begins to squeak loudly, demanding food. And after flying out of the nest, he squeaks, tormenting his adoptive parents.

The picture looks very strange when two small birds, such as flycatchers or warblers, are constantly fussing around a large, already flying cuckoo with reddish plumage. In the photo below you can see what a cuckoo chick looks like, fed with all its might by birds of another species.

The cuckoo opens its mouth so wide that it seems as if it could swallow the bird along with the caterpillars. The following picture is often observed: a bird sits on the cuckoo’s shoulders and shoves food into its mouth from above, and then hurries off again for prey.

Feeding cuckoos

These birds feed exclusively on animal food. Typically, prey is collected from bushes, trees, and a little less often from the ground. It happens that they catch insects on the fly in the air, for which their wide mouth is well adapted.

The basis of nutrition for most cuckoo species is a variety of insects and their larvae. Less commonly, they eat other invertebrates (for example, spiders).

There are species of cuckoos (mostly tropical) that feed on bird eggs and chicks, amphibians, small mammals and reptiles.

What do cuckoo chicks eat? Growing cuckoo chicks are surprisingly voracious. There is one known case when a very young chick of this species, raised in a cage, ate 39 large 18 lizards, 3 butterfly pupae, 5 May beetle larvae, 43 cabbage caterpillars, 4 spiders, 50 mealworms and a large number of ant “eggs” in a day.

The chick is very demanding when it comes to feeding, so it persistently achieves its goal. It often happens that he is fed not only by his “foster” parents, but also by other birds.

The cuckoo has different similar names in other countries: the Bulgarians call it “kukovitsa”, in Romania the word “kuk” is common, the Germans called it “cuckoo”, the Czechs called it “cuckoo”, the French simply call it “cuku”, and the Italians call it “cucolo”. ".

The coloring of the cuckoo is basically the same as that of the sparrowhawk. Perhaps this is not accidental, since thanks to this the cuckoo can easily drive away its owners from the nest.

Redstarts and warblers most often become caregivers of cuckoo cubs.

Conclusion

Despite this feature of the described bird, it is considered useful. The only not very pleasant moment is that, by throwing its eggs into other people's nests and causing the death of the host's chicks, the cuckoo causes some harm, destroying insectivorous beneficial birds.

Cuckoos live almost everywhere - both in the vastness of Russia and in other countries. But since this bird leads an extremely secretive lifestyle, flies only at night, and hides in the thicket of the forest during the day, even professional ornithologists know much less about it than about other birds.

Here's a simple example: absolutely everyone knows that the cuckoo makes its famous “cuckoo.” Are you sure that these birds have a modest “coo-coo” as the only, let’s say, melody in stock? If yes, then go to Siberia, beyond the Urals, and there you will meet cuckoos, which, if you just wait and listen, instead of the boring “cuckoo” they will suddenly give you something like “doo-doo-doo, doo-doo” . Another subspecies of cuckoos, also in Siberia, announces its presence with a whole phrase: “Here is Tetyukhe, here is Te-tyukhe,” - in any case, this is how local residents translate these sounds from the cuckoo language.

However, for some reason all these birds are called cuckoos. Probably because the subspecies of these birds, which can do nothing else except perform “peek-a-boo” solo, is the most common.

Joy or sorrow?

Due to the fact that there are many cuckoos in the world, but we know little about them, many legends and beliefs have appeared around these birds. For example, Ukrainians believed that cuckooing near housing meant crop failure. Cooking for the Annunciation - expect bad news. In the summer, until the cuckoo crows, you should never swim. Since a cuckoo catches a person’s eye very rarely, you can only see it by accident, and you should definitely look at how it sits: if its tail is towards the house and cuckoos, this is good news, but if it is with its head, it’s a bad thing, someone will soon will die.

If you heard the cuckoo for the first time in a year, being in a cheerful mood, you had money in your pocket and you jingled coins or keys in response to the cuckooing, then, according to legend, you will be happy and with money all year.

"Sharing"

As for the cuckoo’s manner of shifting the feeding and upbringing of its offspring onto someone else’s shoulders, yes! This cannot be taken away from them. All cuckoos, without exception, do this. Moreover, they do not lay their eggs in just any nest, but carefully select future adoptive parents for the cuckoo chick.

It is believed that the cuckoo selects a nest similar to the one in which it hatched. There is one more necessary condition: the chosen nest must already contain eggs laid by its owners. Having found such a nest, the cuckoo hides nearby for some time, because if the owners of the nest see it, they will make a terrible noise and drive the impudent one out in shame.

As soon as the future educators fly far enough, the cuckoo does its dirty work, but, depending on the circumstances, in different ways. If the nest is open and strong, the bird will sit directly on it and lay an egg. If the chosen place is in a hollow or has a side entrance, the cuckoo lays an egg on the ground and then carries it in its beak to the nest.

With foster mom

That's interesting. that a cuckoo egg, at first quite different in color from the “native” eggs of the owners of the nest, after some time becomes so similar to them that it cannot be distinguished.

It's not easy to deceive

But at the same time, one should not think that adoptive parents are complete idiots and easily accept all sorts of cuckoos into their family. Not at all! For example, Australian birds called fairy fairies fight the cuckoo's tyranny in the following way: they literally train the eggs by emitting a unique trill over the freshly laid clutch, which in the future serves as a password for the hatched chicks to get food.

The cuckoo egg usually appears later, and therefore the cuckoo egg does not know the password. True, he is also not a fool, and his hearing is usually fine. So after some time, the cuckoo picks up the necessary melody and also begins to receive food.

In addition, birds can count and therefore know very well how many eggs they have in the nest. This counting control looks like this: during the incubation process, bald patches form on the bird’s belly, each egg having its own. The bald patches are needed so that the eggs are pressed more tightly to the hen's body. When a bird sits on a clutch, it instantly senses both the lack of an egg and a foundling. Sensing a stranger, the hen slowly moves him away from her and then simply throws him out of the nest. True, this does not always happen.

Other birds themselves leave the nest, leaving both their own and the cuckoo’s eggs in it, and make a new one. Some, upon discovering an uninvited guest, roll a new litter over the nest, thus burying their nest together with the foundling under it. But still, many species of birds do not notice the forgery.

The cuckoo is usually the first to be born, and almost immediately declares a real war on everything that, in its opinion, is superfluous in the nest. And from the point of view of the cuckoo, everything that is superfluous in the nest is everything. except himself, his beloved. Within three to four days, the cuckoo gets rid of almost all of its nest neighbors, simply throwing them overboard.

Konstantin FEDOROV

Everyone knows cuckoos well. And if someone has not seen it with their own eyes (seeing a cuckoo is not so easy), then they have heard it while visiting the forest in spring or early summer. It is enough to hear the voice of the cuckoo once to immediately understand why it was given such a name. And this is what the bird is called not only in Russian. The Germans call this bird "kukuk". The French say "coo." In Romania it is called "kuk". In Italy - "pupolo". In Spanish her name is “cuco”, and in Turkish it is “guguk”.

The cuckoo is very careful: looking out for suitable nests from ambush in advance, it chooses the moment and lays its egg in it in a few seconds. Some scientists claim that at the same time the cuckoo removes the egg lying there from the nest. But if you think about it, why would she do this? Firstly, birds cannot count; secondly, a completely different situation soon appears in the nest: instead of several, there is one chick; thirdly, the cuckoo throws out all its competitors, and it does not matter to him whether there is one more or one less. Finally, cuckoos do not only lay their eggs in open nests. And it is not always possible to remove someone else’s egg from a hollow or nesting box, even for purely technical reasons. By the way, the cuckoo does not lay an egg in closed nests - it places it somewhere nearby on the ground and transfers it to the nest in its beak. If, nevertheless, observers saw the cuckoo remove the egg (there is no reason to doubt their veracity), then this was probably dictated by some special circumstances.

There is another opinion regarding the cuckoo’s method of laying eggs in other people’s nests. It is believed that the bird is not careful, but, on the contrary, acts very brazenly. In appearance - both in contour and color - it looks like a hawk. Flying low over the nest, the cuckoo hawk scares the birds, forcing them to hide in the bushes or foliage, while at the same time laying an egg. They also say that the male helps the female in laying eggs - he scares or distracts the owners of the nest.

Having thrown eggs into several nests, one in each (and the cuckoo can have 10 or 25 eggs), the cuckoo calmly goes to South Africa for the winter (adult cuckoos fly away very early, young cuckoos fly away late). And tragedies play out in the nests.

The baby cuckoo hatches from the egg a day or two earlier than its half-brothers and sisters. This time is enough for him to get comfortable in the nest. He is still blind (the cuckoo's eyes open on the fifth day), still naked (but already quite strong - he weighs three grams, and can lift twice as much). But he has already developed an instinct for throwing away: he throws away any object that he touches with his bare back. Such items are primarily the eggs or chicks of the nest owners. By hoisting them on its back - the cuckoo chick even has a special area on its back for this - and helping itself with its bare wings, the cuckoo chick in a short time “cleanses” the nest for itself. The cuckoo is in a hurry - the throwing instinct lasts three to four days, then subsides. If he does not have time to throw out his competitors during this time, the chicks will remain in the nest. But they are still doomed: the cuckoo will intercept all the food that the “foster parents” bring.

And the “foster parents” don’t seem to notice the changes that are happening in their nest. They feed their only chick with amazing diligence, although they could have realized long ago that this is not their chick at all. Aristotle drew attention to this amazing phenomenon. “The cuckoo is so beautiful that its breadwinners begin to hate their own children,” he wrote. The real reason for such “devotion” became known relatively recently, thanks to the research of the famous Dutch scientist N. Tienenbergen. It turns out that the bright red throat and yellow mouth of the cuckoo chick are a signal, and a very powerful one, forcing not only the “foster parents” to feed it, but also “stranger” birds that happen to be nearby to give the cuckoo chick food that they caught for their own chicks. At the same time, no one notices or takes into account the colossal size of the chick. Feeder birds sometimes sit on the back or head of their offspring, thrusting their entire heads into its wide-open mouth.

Only a month and a half after leaving the nest does the cuckoo begin to lead an independent life.

Cuckoos mostly lay eggs in the nests of small birds. But some species throw them into the nests of crows, jackdaws and other fairly large birds. But in any case, each cuckoo specializes in certain birds - robins or redstarts, warblers or flycatchers. And the eggs of specialized cuckoos are similar in shape and color to the eggs of these birds. As for the size of the eggs, here is another phenomenon. A cuckoo weighs 100-120 grams, and its egg should weigh 15 grams. But it lays eggs weighing 3 grams, the same as those of a bird weighing 10-12 grams.

Once in England, an exhibition of cuckoo eggs was organized, collected from 76 nests of different species of birds. 919 eggs of various colors, colors and sizes were presented. But not all eggs were presented. Cuckoos are known to lay eggs in the nests of at least 150 species of birds.

It would seem that everything is clear, cuckoos are very harmful birds that destroy the chicks of many beneficial birds. And from here we could draw the appropriate conclusion and treat these birds accordingly. But it’s too early to draw a conclusion. Let's look at this from a different point of view.

Firstly, let's not blame the cuckoo for being a bad mother. There are different opinions regarding what makes cuckoos throw eggs into other people's nests. But one thing is certain: this behavior of the cuckoo is not explained by a lack of maternal feeling, but, on the contrary, by concern for the preservation of its offspring. The cuckoo baby cannot save its life without throwing its competitors out of the nest: its “adoptive parents” are not able to feed the entire family - the cuckoo baby is very gluttonous. And it is this bird’s insatiability (if we talk about harm and benefit) that atones for its guilt for the death of the chicks of other birds. An adult cuckoo can eat up to 100 caterpillars in an hour, and it can “work” with such intensity for several hours in a row. And if a lot of pests appear in the forest where the cuckoo lives, it will eat them without interruption until it eats them all. Many cuckoos flock to the “feast”, they even fly from far away. In other words, one cuckoo destroys significantly more harmful insects (and more dangerous insects) than all the birds killed by the cuckoo would destroy.

But insatiability is not the only advantage of cuckoos. Among insects, especially among caterpillars, there are some that other birds do not eat, for example, many birds do not eat “hairy” caterpillars. And the cuckoo eats, and with great pleasure. Its stomach is designed in such a way that the “hair” of the caterpillars digs into a special coating of the walls, and then this coating is removed from the stomach along with the “hair”.

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